Event Partners

Music 4.5 Blockchain

Blockchain and the trust issue

Blockchain technology is – simply put – a mechanism for creating trust. A shared, trusted, public ledger that everyone can inspect but which no single user controls, blockchain lets people who have no particular confidence in each other collaborate without having to go through a neutral central authority. As The Economist puts it: “the spread of blockchain is bad for anyone in ‘the trust business’, the centralized institutions and bureaucracies, such as banks, clearing houses and government authorities that are deemed sufficiently trustworthy to handle transactions.”
However, this hasn’t stopped a number of VCs from investing in blockchain technology start-ups.

In the music industry, “the trust business” has been the domain of collecting societies and record labels, under a system that is notoriously lacking in transparency for the artists and musicians who struggle to access basic information about where their music is being played and by whom. Benji Rogers of PledgeMusic believes that blockchain can solve the “most entrenched problems of the music industry: the lack of an efficient way to track music rights, ownership or payments globally across the business, despite several (failed) efforts to build a centralised database of music rights.”

Music 4.5: Blockchain and the trust issue will be asking some of the following questions:
• What is stopping the music industry from adopting blockchain technology to organize royalty payments, licensing agreements, and data?
• What are the key concerns and fears for music companies, digital services, PROs and artists?
• How can a situation of multiple competing blockchains be avoided, which could potentially undermine the power of blockchain as a single industry-wide rights infrastructure?
• Who is currently utilizing blockchain to successful effect?
• And who stands to be the one to create and implement the elusive industry-wide database - a maverick start-up? A non-profit Linux-style foundation? YouTube or Spotify?

For information about speaking opportunities at this seminar, please contact rassami@2pears.com.

Register to attend

If you need assistance with your registration, please contact petra@2pears.com.

A two-tiered pricing structure allows qualified (and cash-strapped) music tech startups, artists and bands to attend Music 4.5 at a reduced rate. 2Pears reserve the right to approve registrations and refuse entry if incorrect category is stated.

To register and pay by credit card, please select the ticket category below and follow the steps. If you wish to pay via BACS or wire transfer, please contact accounts@2pears.com.

Venue

Reed Smith offices, 599 Lexington Avenue, New York

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